---
title: For a long time he lay very still, watching the bracken, and hoping… — The Velveteen Rabbit · tree and pragmatics
description: For a long time he lay very still, watching the bracken, and hoping that they would come back. Who acts: bracken, strangers. A sentence of «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Opening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/144/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Velveteen Rabbit](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/) / [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/) / 144

# The Velveteen Rabbit, Opening, sentence 144

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
For a long time he lay very still, watching the bracken, and hoping that they would come back.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bracken, strangers · **What happens:** lie, watch, hope, come back · **To what, where:** bracken

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Opening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bracken, strangers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg11757:1:144
# text = For a long time he lay very still, watching the bracken, and hoping that they would come back.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	still	still	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bracken	bracken	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	hoping	hope	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
20	back	back	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | bracken |  |  |  | still; time |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **watch** | gerund | bracken *not said here* | the bracken |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bracken=Theme |
| 3 | **hope** | gerund | bracken *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **come back** | would | strangers *= stranger* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Velveteen Rabbit» by Margery Williams Bianco, Project Gutenberg book 11757 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 143](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/143/)
- next →: [sentence 145](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/145/)
- ↑ back to [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg11757/1/)